Loaf

[lohf] /loʊf/

noun, plural loaves
[lohvz] /loʊvz/ (Show IPA)
1.
a portion of bread or cake baked in a mass, usually oblong with a rounded top.
2.
a shaped or molded mass of food, as of sugar or chopped meat:
a veal loaf.
3.
British.

[lohf] /loʊf/
verb (used without object)
1.
to idle away time:
He figured the mall was as good a place as any for loafing.
2.
to lounge or saunter lazily and idly:
We loafed for hours along the water’s edge.
verb (used with object)
3.
to pass idly (usually followed by away):
to loaf one’s life away.
/ləʊf/
noun (pl) loaves (ləʊvz)
1.
a shaped mass of baked bread
2.
any shaped or moulded mass of food, such as cooked meat
3.
(slang) the head; sense: use your loaf!
/ləʊf/
verb
1.
(intransitive) to loiter or lounge around in an idle way
2.
(transitive) foll by away. to spend (time) idly: he loafed away his life
n.

late 13c., from Old English hlaf “portion of bread baked in a mass of definite form,” from Proto-Germanic *khlaibuz (cf. Old Norse hleifr, Swedish lev, Old Frisian hlef, Old High German hleib, German Laib, Gothic hlaifs “bread, loaf”), of uncertain origin, perhaps connected to Old English hlifian “to raise higher, tower,” on the notion of the bread rising as it bakes, but it is unclear whether “loaf” or “bread” is the original sense. Finnish leipä, Old Church Slavonic chlebu, Lithuanian klepas probably are Germanic loan words. Meaning “chopped meat shaped like a bread loaf” is attested from 1787.
v.

1835, American English, back-formation from loafer (1830), which often is regarded as a variant of land loper (1795), a partial loan-translation of German Landläufer “vagabond,” from Land “land” + Läufer “runner,” from laufen “to run” (see leap). But OED finds this connection “not very probable.” Related: Loafed; loafing.
see: half a loaf is better than none